Private and executive coach Johanna Sawalha has more than 15 years of coaching experience and has founded and headed several companies. Contact her at: coaching@sawalha.com | http://coaching.sawalha.com

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HOW TO SELL WHEN NO ONE IS BUYING – growing your business when households and business have a lock down on spending…

To answer that question, and to raise a few more, we have to examine ourselves (what else is new?) and how our old ways of selling aren’t sufficient in today’s market.

It starts with comfort and discomfort.

In yoga philosophy they are represented by “dvesha” and “abinivesha”.

Your likes and dislikes.

That part of the human mechanism that votes endlessly.

“Do I like this?”

“Don’t I like this?”

It’s funny given how the stars twinkle and the sun rises and sets, regardless of whether we like it or not! But we are very attached to what we like and dislike.

It is how we categorize most experiences.

For example, “this is what I like to sell, and how I like to sell it”…

“Oh, I don’t like to sell, I know nothing about it, I wouldn’t feel confident in my speaking…”

But here you are.

You have no choice.

You may have to market or sell what you may never have sold before (as in more, different, new products, etc.) – as well as <em>in a way</em> that is unfamiliar to you. It may be required of you to sell things where you are<em> not</em> the expert on the product.

What do you do?

Here are three questions to ask yourself that can help:

See if there is a core problem that you can solve for your potential client. There might be a company wide issue that the business is suffering from, for example chronic lateness, or a lot of sick days, or delays in the supply line. You’d make yourself invaluable by solving such a fundamental issue.

Lean on past success and think about how you can make it even better this time. What do you have to tweak to make it fit your selling opportunity today?

Who do you know, who do you know, who do you know…?

You may have many subject matter experts in your immediate circle that you haven’t thought of and that could help.

On that note, I welcome your thoughts, feedback, comments and questions!